


Terra Incognita

by cryingoverspilledvodka



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Conspiracy Theory, Humour, It's a baby Buzzfeed Unsolved AU!, Light Flirting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2018-11-10
Packaged: 2019-08-21 18:29:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16581785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cryingoverspilledvodka/pseuds/cryingoverspilledvodka
Summary: Internet investigators extraordinaire, Yuuri and Phichit look into a local legend.





	Terra Incognita

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LinneaKou](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LinneaKou/gifts).



> Request: Conspiracy theory humorous AU (Viktor/Yuuri, with Chris and Phichit, any rating)

‘Buy yourself a coffee.’  
  
‘I’m not going to buy a coffee.’  
  
‘Buy me a coffee?’  
  
‘I don’t think you really get this whole bargaining lark,’ Yuuri said, not even looking up from his camcorder, adjusting the aperture with exaggerated concentration as Phichit flittered around him like a particularly manic bird, vivid in his red parka and blind faith in a murderous Russian café. ‘I’m pretty sure I told you I drew the line at conspiracy theories.’  
  
‘And I would never question your lines, or even threaten to Tippex over the ones I don’t entirely agree with,’ Phichit said with mock contrite, stepping up to the window of the café again to regard the menu for what had to be the fiftieth time since they’d shown up outside the place. ‘So as it stands, this is not a conspiracy theory. This is more like theoretical investigation into possible shady dealings.’  
  
Yuuri held the camcorder up, adjusting the sit of it on his shoulder. The weight of the Sony on his shoulder was worth more than Yuuri fancied admitting to, as cumbersome as it was impressive. How the beautiful yet unfortunate thing had found itself used for this specific purpose was an adventure unto itself, really. ‘So in other words, a conspiracy theory.’  
  
‘I like to think of it more in the family of vigilanteism,’ Phichit said like this was in any way a better argument, turning back over to Yuuri before smiling widely. ‘`Alright. I think I managed to understand something well enough to chance ordering it.’

‘You know having the menus in Not English, whatever language that may be, usually means they don’t really fancy customers coming in who don’t speak that language.’

‘We’re all the same continent, aren’t we?’   
  
‘No,’ Yuuri said, needlessly as Phichit both knew that and also didn’t care.  
  
‘Why don’t you just order this infamous coffee?’ Yuuri asked, setting up to start recording as Phichit fished his phone out to check his (immaculate) appearance in the screen of it. Phichit had this rather impressive if irksome talent for always looking perfectly Instagram-able at any given moment. That was why he was the guy in front of the camera, Yuuri thought to himself. That and the shameful belief in such nonsense such as aliens and Russian hitmen.   
  
‘They wouldn’t trust me if I ordered just a coffee,’ Phichit said and Yuuri frowned, replying; ‘But they’d trust me?’  
  
‘You look nice and reputable,’ Phichit said, leaning up onto the balls of his feet to get a hand into the dark fringe of Yuuri’s hair. ‘No one would suspect you ordering a coffee. Looking all grown up and… re-spectacled.’ Phichit tapped the arm of Yuuris’s glasses with a finger, gigging. ‘I’d have to order pickled Tsar or something for them to not kick me out straight away.’  
  
‘Maybe easing up on the Russian jokes will help,’ Yuuri laughed back, adjusting himself a bit better and looking at Phichit through the lense of the camcorder. Phichit’s beanie’d head settling with practice into the fine black lines of the frame. Yuuri started to record, holding himself steady as Phichit adjusted the microphone clipped to the feathered edge of his coat. ’So, what’s this place really supposed to be then? Credit union for lizard people? Ghoulish barista college?’  
  
‘You have many gifts, my friend, but funny is not one of them,’ Phichit hit back, but he was smiling. Phichit turned over his shoulder, gesturing to the café itself. It was on the corner where two rather grubby streets converged, footpath cracked and cobbled road looking particularly close to the knobbled end of such. The windows were darkened so it looked closed, if not entirely abandoned but for the small white square of a menu written in what had to be phonetic Russian beneath an impressive Cyrillic one. Phichit nodded once to Yuuri, before gesturing to the miserable establishment with flourish.  
  
‘This week on _Terra Incognita,_ the show that goes dark and deep for you _,_ Yuuri and I investigate the local theory that CoMix, the Russian café off Maylor Street, is actually a front for the infamous Bratva, funnelling covert spy information through baked confectionary and organising the most illicit of hits among the coffee beans,’ Phichit said with all the flirtation that only something so deliciously bonkers could offer with an air of expectation that had their extensive follower list momentarily think said bonkerdom might just be true.   
  
It wasn’t. Of course.  
  
Yuuri tried not to sigh, and for that he should’ve been commended somewhere but as it was, Phichit just pulled a face at Yuuri through the lense. ‘This is why you don’t get a microphone. I can feel your skepticism in my ear like static.’  
  
‘I don’t get a microphone because I’m the dutiful cameraman who doesn’t need one,’ Yuuri pointed out, twisting at his waist get a long angle shot of the café.   
  
‘And yet you still voice your terrible opinion,’ Phichit said with an air of someone who was long suffering. (He wasn’t). ‘You may not believe me now, but trust me, this time- this time I’ll get you to eat your words.’  
  
‘Can I get it with pickled Tsar?’ Yuuri asked, only to be ignored as Phichit started to regale their audience with the admittedly impressive urban legend that the café had been set up by an ex-KGB agent turned mafia hitman, who named the place after his lost love. It was very romantic and Phichit was selling it with his big eyes, already widened with suitably believable ardour at the thought that they might walk straight into the hands of Putin’s not-so-finest.  
  
‘Let’s take a look inside!’ Phichit announced, before turning promptly and pushing the mottled glass door of the café open. Yuuri sighed again, muttering how Phichit didn’t even tell him ahead if he was allowed to film inside, before resigning himself to walk after the vanishing parka-tails of Phichit.   
  
It took a few moments for Yuuri to adjust to the sudden dimness of the café, a couple moments longer to adjust his Sony so it could capture the quaint splendour. The café had a touch of the personal about it, with framed photographs and a pile of worn, yellowed books on the counter by the door for reading it seemed. It was a small, closed space with crooked round tables and nearly every surface was shrouded in a lacy… something. Yuuri zoomed over Phichit’s shoulders to get a focus on the little Russian dolls that lined up on a shelf across the room. Maybe for the thumbnail.  
  
‘Oh wow,’ Phichit said, bringing Yuuri and the camcorder back to him. Phichit was looking around the room, an expression of utter delight on his face. ‘This is actually super cute. Who knew Bratva’s were so cute?’  
  
‘Please stop,’ Yuuri pleaded as the older man in the far corner of the café looked up at them from a Cyrillic newspaper, but Yuuri should’ve known better. There was no stopping Phichit when he got started. Phichit sat down on one of the nearer tables, both chairs mismatched and looked up at Yuuri expectantly.   
  
‘What do you think?’  
  
‘I think we’ve been here thirty seconds and you’ve already got a hit out on you,’ Yuuri said, wondering how best to sit without disrupting the shot when they were both interrupted by someone. The man was tall, taller than Yuuri and really, quite attractive. He watched Yuuri with friendly green eyes, curious behind round framed glasses. Yuuri was suddenly hyper-aware of the lazy hoodie he’d thrown on that morning, thinking no one this fit would see him.   
  
Typical.  
  
‘Can I get you boys something?’ the man asked kindly, holding a small and battered looking notebook aloft. His voice was accented and warm, the way he smiled at Yuuri making Yuuri’s cheeks hot. Yuuri looked away, focusing entirely on Phichit through the lense of the camcorder instead. Phichit grinned like butter wouldn’t melt, effortlessly photogenic.   
  
Again. Typical.  
  
‘Two coffees please,’ Phichit said, to which their server’s eyebrows raised and Yuuri could feel the man watching the camcorder like it too might turn around say it fancied an espresso of its own. The silence dragged on a moment past the point of comfort and not one part of it was punctuated with the scratch of pen on paper. When Yuuri forced himself to look up, Green Eyed and Handsome was watching both he and Phichit with a look of quiet amusement. 

 

‘You call by every day this week, posing pretty outside my window, only to ask me for a coffee when you finally decide to grace the door with your presence?’ the waiter said, looking at Phichit over the top of his glasses with something a little too sharp to be called teasing. Yuuri squirmed beneath the weight of the camcorder, watching how Phichit didn’t even blink.   
  
‘I hear it’s some really great coffee,’ he said with such charm, Yuuri was genuinely surprised when the waiter seemed unenthused.   
  
‘Really,’ he said, turning his broad chest in Yuuri’s direction. ‘So good, you decided to vlog the whole affair? I’m flattered, turning so pink they’re about to serve me like tartare in fact.’  
  
There was something almost French about the way the man said the word _affair_ and when he looked over, catching Yuuri’s eye, Yuuri shamefully twitched the camcorder about on his shoulder like he’d just been caught in the act of one. From across the room, the old man laughed like crinkling paper. Even Phichit it seemed was at a loss of what to say to that for a moment, before he seemed to regroup, coming back in with another kilowatt smile.  
  
‘I mean, if you’re serving that, I’d definitely be interested,’ Phichit said and Yuuri blinked, thrown. Was Phichit really going to try… flirting? That never ended particularly well. ‘But perhaps we could start with something a bit lighter, Mister..?’  
  
‘Giacometti, Chris,’ Chris said and Phichit leaned on his chin, the picture of coquette composure. Yuuri really didn’t know where Phichit got such terrible influences. Yuuri looked between the two of them, his previous interest in Chris and his handsome face cooling considerably as Chris arched a beautiful brow to match Phichit’s.   
  
‘Cool!’ Phichit chirped, holding a hand out. ‘I’m Phichit, and this is Yuuri!’  
  
‘I know who you are,’ Chris said coolly, ignoring Phichit’s hand which wilted downwards like a particularly sad weed. Chris tipped his notebook towards Yuuri. ‘I figured it once you sat down. That red coat of yours is quite the statement piece.’ Chris pointed his pen at Yuuri. ‘Almost as good as this little accessory.’   
  
Yuuri felt that one, right between the ribs and suddenly wished the floor would open up and swallow him. Embarrassed, Yuuri lowered the camcorder down and made what he hoped was a suitably pointed expression in Phichit’s direction. Something along the lines of _Can we leave and once we do, would you be so kind as to let me belt you on the upside of the head for being so stupid?_  
  
‘So you watch our show!’ Phichit said, looking excited. ‘Then you must have an idea why we’re here!’  
  
‘None whatsoever,’ Chris said, inspecting his immaculate nails now with great showmanship. In any other circumstances, Yuuri thought this Chris and Phichit would’ve made quite the fearsome pair. Now however, Yuuri was beginning to a nervous twist in his stomach from that manic gleam in Phichit’s eyes that always spelled trouble. Usually with a capitol T and Yuuri’s tears of frustration as punctuation.   
  
‘Would you be up talking to us?’ Phichit said like he wasn’t steadily nailing down the lid of Yuuri’s coffin.  
  
Chris tapped his pen on his notebook. ’Over my famous coffees?’   
  
‘Sure!’ Phichit said, missing or ignoring the vibe Yuuri was getting.   
  
‘Maybe we should call it day?’ Yuuri suggested, before everyone was interrupted by the sound of the little bell above the door clinking again. Yuuri looked over, clutching his camcorder instinctively before feeling like this time, the floor really had opened up beneath him.   
  
Shit.   
  
A policeman had just walked in, high visibility raincoat and all so there was absolutely no missing him. Yuuri felt his blood cold, looking quickly to Phichit for some semblance of a plan, but Phichit seemed just as frozen by this turn of events. The policeman was tall, and possibly slender enough beneath the unattractive combination of vest and raincoat. But all Yuuri could see was the bright blue and silver of impending doom, printed in innocuous little blocks across the policeman’s chest.  
  
‘Everything alright here?’ the policeman said, taking off his hat as he approached. Yuuri’s mouth went dry instantly as the policeman ran a hand through his pale hair, his angular face beautifully flattering. Yuuri tried to speak, or even breathe. Neither of which was happening any time soon, because as attractive as this policeman was, (and he was, mind), he was still a policeman and somewhere around that thought, Yuuri began to feel like the walls were closing in around him.   
  
Shit, shit, shit.   


_‘Merde!’_ Chris said, holding his face in his hands for a moment. ‘Sorry, Victor. I had forgotten! I’ve called you away from your lunch for nothing.’  
  
‘I wouldn’t say that,’ Victor said, smiling with interest at both Yuuri and Phichit. Yuuri looked away quickly, feeling his cheeks beginning to burn as Officer Victor… Sergeant Victor… _Victor_ watched him. Yuuri felt like he was being x-rayed all of a sudden. ‘I always love the excuse to call by anyway.’  
  
And he was clearly Russian as well, had to be. Wasn’t that just insult to injury? Yuuri felt.   
  
‘You called the cops?’ Phichit said, breaking the strange but anxious calm that had descended. He stood up, chair scraping and pointed an accusing finger at Chris. ‘You didn’t even give us a chance! We could’ve been adorable little additions to your day if you had given us the chance!’  
  
‘You’ve been lurking outside for almost a week!’ Chris shot back, waving his notebook defensively. ‘I saw you so many times on the CCTV I could give you top billing! I thought you were casing us out!’  
  
Yuuri groaned, chin dropping. Phichit Chulanont, master of subtlety it would seem. Most of the time, if not entirely so, the places they went to for their investigative series were abandoned. Or cordoned off in the process of becoming abandoned. Or the middle of the sodding woods, waiting for little green men. Thinking back, Yuuri was beginning to feel a self-awareness of amazement that they hadn’t been reported to the police before now.  
  
Phichit raised a hand to his chest in offence. ‘You thought we were _thieves?_ I thought you said you watched our show!’  
  
‘I only recognised you when you came in,’ Chris said defensively, gesturing to Victor. ‘So I called my friend to call by. He was only supposed to give you a bit of a scare if you were thieves. But you’re not, so no harm done. Do you still want your coffee?’  
  
‘Do I-?’ Phichit spluttered, looking to Yuuri like Yuuri might help. Yuuri could not help, as Officer Policeman Victor had just come closer and really, he was quite a touch more than attractive and Yuuri was beginning to worry there was indeed a conspiracy of some kind at play here. ‘No, thank you. Unless they’re apology coffees.’  
  
‘Are you trying to con free coffees?’  
  
‘No! Of course we’ll pay, as we are fine upstanding citizens and support local business,’ Phichit said and Yuuri heard himself groaning again before he could stop himself. ‘But it’s about the _sentiment._ If you intend them to say sorry.’  
  
‘I am not sorry for looking out for my place of work,’ Chris said, almost laughing and for that, Yuuri couldn’t really blame him.   
  
‘Is he always like this?’ a voice whispered in Yuuri’s ear and Yuuri yelped, wondering when Victor had sidled so close. Victor reached out, steadying the weight of the camcorder in Yuuri’s now shaking hands. ‘Your friend.’  
  
Yuuri looked to where Phichit was now pouting, before back to Victor and his long, narrow nose. Yuuri focused on it, trying to stay calm trumping the worry that he may appear cross-eyed in front of this handsome policeman. ‘He’s not my friend.’  
  
‘No?’ Victor asked, clearly amused. Phichit held up a sugar packet to Chris, clearing making a point of some kind and Yuuri pinched the bridge of his nose.   
  
‘Not anymore.’ 

 

‘So cruel,’ Victor hummed with a laugh that went down Yuuri’s back like fingers. Self-conscious, Yuuri shuffled slightly away from where the weirdly enticing smell of Victor’s official anorak and some kind of cologne.   
  
‘It’s not even the real police!’ Chris replied to Phichit’s latest statement, shrugging at Victor. ‘I called my friend, who happens to be police. It was a perfectly fair thing to do. Honestly, such dramatics!’  
  
‘Is that what you do back in the old country? Call the police on perfectly lovely people?’ Phichit asked and Yuuri nearly bit through his own tongue he was about to swear so loudly. Mortified, Yuuri peaked at Victor through his horrified fingers. Victor’s pale eyebrows had gone so far into his fringe at this, Yuuri lost sight of them.  
  
‘I’m Swiss,’ Chris retorted, deadpan. Phichit shuffled on his feet before adding meekly; ‘Switzerland is old…’  


‘Okay,’ Victor said with all the command that a policeman contained. Thankfully, both Phichit and Chris fell silent. Victor stepped forward, up to his full height and Yuuri had never felt like a very short person, but there was something knobbling Yuuri in the knees with way Victor took control of the situation. ‘I think this was just a small misunderstanding, but how about you and your cameraman join me outside, and we can let Chris and his customers get back to their day?’  
  
Phichit looked for a moment like he might argue against this, but when he met Yuuri’s eye he seemed to concede. Thankfully. Victor turned to look at Yuuri over his shoulder, replacing his hat on his head. ‘Coming, cameraman?’  
  
Yuuri nodded mutely, following both Victor and Phichit outside.   
  
Yuuri knew he should’ve been listening as well, to whatever Victor and Phichit were talking about. But he wasn’t. Instead, Yuuri was looking at the way Victor’s hair angled under the lip of his hat, the way he tapped his chin with interest as Phichit explained the actual reasoning for their being there. Yuuri found himself wondering what Victor looked like beneath the cumbersome raincoat, if he was so effortlessly lovely there, too-  
  
‘Alright, I think I’m satisfied you’re not about to crack open old Feltman’s safe,’ Victor said, tapping his own prim notebook with a biro after finishing a sentence with flourish. ‘And I’m sure Chris will be inclined to talk to you if you call ahead next time. He’s not as thorny as he appears.’  
  
‘Is he your friend?’ Yuuri asked, aiming for blithe because if Victor happened to know Chris a little more intimately than that, he wouldn’t be surprised but would certainly be disappointed. Victor looked at Yuuri, silent for just a fraction too long it felt and Yuuri felt he had missed _blithe_ by a considerable measure.   
  
‘Got stuck with him after my millionth coffee,’ Victor said, winking and Yuuri flushed, raising his camcorder like he might hide behind it. ‘This place is a bit of a haunt of mine.’  
  
The second Victor said it, Yuuri wished he hadn’t. As Phichit erupted into life beside him like a bat of out hell. This hell, particularly. Which seemed to be Yuuri’s own personal endeavour, sent upon him by demons on high.   
  
‘Really?’ Phichit said, with stars in his eyes and Yuuri resisted no further, hitting Phichit squarely on the arm and completely unapologetic for it. Phichit yelped, looking at Yuuri with wide eyes containing a remarkable amount of betrayal over a situation that was entirely his fault. Yuuri bowed his head to Victor.  
  
‘Ignore him. We’re sorry to have bothered you, and your friend,’ Yuuri said, grabbing Phichit with his free hand and starting to tug him down the street. ‘We’ll be going now.’  
  
‘Wait!’ Victor said, tipping his hat back so he could see Yuuri more clearly. ‘I need your contact details.’  
  
‘Why?’ Phichit asked, earning him another puck. Victor blinked, as no doubt he was very rarely challenged. And certainly not a Thai lad who barely made it to his impressive chest. Not that Yuuri had noticed… of course.   
  
‘Standard procedure,’ Victor easily, tapping his biro again. ‘I can just take one of your numbers, if you like. Maybe yours?’  
  
It took Yuuri a moment to realise he was being spoken to. ‘Oh. You mean for like… calling me?’  
  
‘If you’d be amenable,’ Victor said and he smiled, which Yuuri felt was unfair all around really. Yuuri blinked, stunned by the strangeness of the whole situation and barely noticing the way Phichit was vibrating next to him. ‘Or if you’re not, I could always… convince you?’  
  
Yuuri frowned, completely lost as Phichit shook his head, wincing almost. ‘Oh, guy. Wow. You suck at this. You really suck at this.’  
  
‘You want me, to want you… to call me?’ Yuuri said, sounding it out just to be sure he was following the strange angle of this conversation. Victor grinned happily, holding his notebook out towards Yuuri.   
  
‘I wouldn’t say no.’  
  
Yuuri took the notebook, looking down to see that the only note Victor had written this entire time it seemed was; _My name is Victor Nikiforov, and I’d love to get you that coffee._ That was rather sweet, if a touch naff. It made Yuuri smile, made the swirl of nervousness in his stomach galvanise into something slightly more confident. He pawned off his camcorder into Phichit’s waiting arms, scribbling his number and his own note.   
  
_My name is Yuuri,_ it said. _And I do not believe in conspiracy theories._ When Victor read it, he laughed and it made Yuuri’s heart do a skippy little thing in his chest.   
  
‘I’ll talk to you soon then, Yuuri,’ Victor said as he placed his notebook into the inside pocket of his raincoat. He smiled politely to Phichit, before he waved them both off and walked back down the street towards the café. Yuuri watched him go, reality sinking in slowly as he did so.   
  
‘Do you think he’ll call me?’ Yuuri asked, brain suddenly tripping over itself as it thought of all the ways he could’ve misinterpreted that situation. ‘In a non-police way, I mean.’  


‘Of course he will,’ Phichit said, but he didn’t sound quite as excited as he had that one time someone wrote their number on Yuuri’s Starbucks cup. Yuuri eyed him carefully, taking his camcorder back before Phichit did any undue damage. ‘But don’t you think it’s odd he showed up?’  
  
‘Not really. By the sounds of it, you were behaving pretty poorly around that café so no wonder the waiter called him,’ Yuuri pointed out but Phichit pulled a stubborn little face.   
  
‘No, not the policeman thing. But a _Russian_ policeman,’ Phichit said, holding his hands out like he were presenting Yuuri with some kind of evidence for whatever was scheming in his daft mind. Yuuri frowned, not liking at all where this was going. ‘Don’t you think it’s a bit suspicious that we’re investigating the Russian Bratva and our investigation gets derailed by a sudden policeman who happens to be Russian?’  
  
‘Am I so unattractive that you’d rather think the Russian mafia sent a hit man after us than the policeman just happened to fancy me?’ Yuuri asked, really trying not to be offended but Phichit was not helping his case by merely shrugging in response.   
  
‘He can still fancy you and want to assassinate you,’ Phichit said and Yuuri mulled that one over for a moment, before thinking- no, not even going to deal with it. ‘I’m just saying!’  
  
‘If he does turn out to be a Russian assassin, I’m going to be very unsorry when he kills you,’ Yuuri said balefully, Phichit trailing after him as he started making his way down the street. ‘Maybe we can do it together, as a first date.’  
  
‘This is why my fanbase is bigger than yours. No one wants to be a Katscary over a Boolanont.’

Yuuri wondered if Officer Victor, who was going to buy Yuuri a coffee, could do one better and buy him a new friend and all.


End file.
